There is an ever increasing demand for obtaining information from different devices and apparatuses that we use daily, and medicament delivery devices are no exception to that demand. Because of this, a number of medicament delivery devices have been developed that contain “smart” features such as sensor and monitoring systems, communication circuits, man-machine interfaces that can present information regarding the status of the medicament delivery device, for instance.
Even though the costs of these smart features are decreasing, it is, for instance, still too costly to provide disposable, smart medicament delivery devices. Another factor is also that the discarded medicament delivery devices would contain waste components that would be much better to recycle than to throw away, if disposable medicament delivery devices were to be provided with intelligent circuits.
A further drawback is if medicament delivery devices that are approved by national drug agencies and are out on the market were to be provided with added functionality built into the interior of the medicament delivery device. This would then require a new approval by the national drug agencies, which might take a number of years to obtain. It would be a better and simpler solution if the added functionality could be arranged outside the medicament delivery devices and not built into them.
One feature of particular interest in medicament delivery devices is to monitor the movement of components or elements of a drive unit, such as for example a plunger rod that is acting on a medicament container during delivery of a dose of medicament. However, since these components are arranged inside a housing of a medicament delivery device, access to them may be difficult without major modifications.
Document EP 2190506 discloses a medicament delivery device arranged with a monitoring unit. In one embodiment, the electronics unit is arranged as an attachable auxiliary device provided with a reader of RFID-sensors. One such RFID-sensor is comprised in a sensor system that is placed inside the medicament delivery device. Thus, this solution requires modification or insertion of additional components inside the medicament delivery device in order to obtain a higher degree of intelligence.